Love and Learn
by Makokam
Summary: Mallory Grace deals with her first broken heart.


Disclaimer: Not my conept, not my characters, not my setting, just my plot

Authors note: Damnit! Stop eating my scene dividers!  
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Love and Learn

Mallory Grace; 15, female, 5-foot 7-inches, brown hair, brown eyes, broken heart.

She stood in the parking lot behind the school auditorium with the rain pouring down through her hair and into her eyes as his words echoed though her mind.

"You're a great fencer Mallory, and you're fun to hang out with, but you're just not what I want in a girl." He had paused before getting into his car, "I really am sorry, Mallory. … I'll see you at the next practice."

'The next practice,' as in, not at the movie they were going to go to, to celebrate her victory tonight. That's what she got for asking if he was taking her on a date.

She had been standing there since he had driven off. She lost track of how long it had been. She just stood there letting the rain chill her skin, until it was as numb as her soul. Her eyes stared forward unseeing; unflinching even when a car's headlights shown straight into them.

"Mallory!"

Somewhere in her mind she heard the voice call her name, but it didn't register.

"Mallory, what are you doing out in the rain? Mallory?"

She blinked and looked over at the car. It was her mother.

"Mallory, what are you doing out in the rain? Are you okay?"

Suddenly, she was grateful for the rain, as it hid the tears streaming down her face as she smiled at her mother, "Yeah, I'm fine."

- - -

Water dripped onto the floor as she walked up the steps to her room. She opened the door and dropped her equipment bag on the floor then fell onto her bed and didn't move. Her teeth gripped the sheets tightly as she tried not to burst into tears. Memories of Chris ran though her head. The day they first met. How she felt the first time he complimented her on her form. The way he had hugged her when they won their first tournament. All of the practices and tournaments and celebrations. All the smiles he'd given her. None were for her, just for a teammate.

- - -

Her eyes opened as she realized she'd fallen asleep. Her reminiscing had moved so smoothly into dreaming that she hadn't noticed the transition. She picked herself off the bed. It was damp; she was damp. It was midnight, she was tired, and she wanted to fall back into oblivion. But the cold and wetness offered no comfort. She pulled the blanket from her bed and took a fresh one from the closet. Her clothes were pulled off and tossed onto the floor and she curled herself around her pillow, pulled the blanket over her, and fell asleep.

- - -

She awoke the next morning still curled into a fetal position around her pillow. She uncurled herself, and rolled onto her back, arms spread wide. Her eyes stared through the ceiling and she felt the tears starting to build in her eyes. She sniffed, then pulled herself up and out of her bed. She wasn't going to lie in bed and cry like a heart-broken little girl.

Even if that's what she was

She stepped into the shower and turned the water on as hot as she could stand. The water streamed over her body, pouring heat and sensation into cold, tight muscles. Bracing herself against the wall, she leaned forward and let the heat and steam relax her body until she felt she could face the day.

In her room, she pulled on a clean pair of sweatpants before pulling her hair into a pony tail. She looked in her mirror and decided that she looked clean enough to not appear to be sulking, yet not dressed up enough to look like she was trying to put up a front. She simply was. And that was exactly the look she wanted.

- - -

In the kitchen, her mother was cooking eggs, her brother Simon was mashing up raw hamburger and corn flakes, which could only mean that Byron had returned again. The griffin seemed to have adopted their carriage house as it's own nest, and no matter how many times, or how long, it left, it seemed as if it would I_always_/I come back. And with the care and attention Simon gave it, she could hardly blame it.

Her other brother Jared was working carefully away at his practice sketch book. A peek over his shoulder showed that he was trying to sketch Simon while he was mixing up Byron's breakfast. He was actually getting quite good and would probably feel confident enough in his skill to start adding to The Guide in another month or so.

Her mother noticed her and turned towards her, "You were absolutely soaked to the bone last night, Mallory. I don't have any idea why you were just standing out in the rain like that-"

_Sure you don't_.

"-but I figured you could use a nice hot breakfast this morning. There's oatmeal and bacon keeping warm in the oven, so help yourself, and your eggs should be done in a moment."

She grabbed a bowl from the cupboard and spooned herself some oatmeal. There were peaches cut into it and it smelled of cinnamon. Just the way she liked it. She stopped herself from sighing -- her mother totally knew.

Simon took the meat and flake mash out to Byron, Jared continued to work on his sketch, her mother made herself busy, and she ate in silence.

She heard the "thump" of the heavy sketchbook hitting the table and knew what was coming, "Could you help us with-" her brother started.

"No." She finished.

"But-"

"No." If those two wanted to go mess around with that troll, that was fine with her, but she wasn't going anywhere near it.

Jared sighed, "fine" and left the table.

As she continued to eat, she thought that maybe she _should_ have gone with her brothers. Sure, it would be dangerous, but at least she'd have her mind occupied and unable to think about Chris. She thought about what she could do to keep herself too busy to sulk, and by the time she'd finished breakfast she had decided to see if her favorite sparring partner was around.

- - -

After eating, she had quickly gone into her room and retrieved one of her fencing foils and then headed out into their enormous backyard. She'd sat down on a rock near the tree line, the foil across her lap, closed her eyes, and waited.

It hadn't taken long. She couldn't have sat there for more than ten minutes before she felt the nuzzling at her cheek. She opened her eyes and smiled as she rubbed at the silver grey neck. She stood and brought her foil forward. The unicorn only came midway up her chest, but the single, graceful horn in the middle of its forehead came past her head. She took her stance, tapped her foil to her partners horn, and the match began.

- - -

You wouldn't think that a unicorn would be able to do something as complicated as parry and thrust. You'd be wrong. The little beast was more agile than anything that looked that much like a horse had any right to be. Also, its neck is far more flexible than a human arm. Those are the reasons Mallory found herself, again, on the ground without her foil.

It's also the reason she's the only undefeated member of the fencing team.

"Okay, okay. I give," She said, patting it affectionately on the muzzle before she stood up and dusted herself off. She started walking away before waving back at the unicorn, "Thanks for the great match!" and then continuing off to the house for a well deserved shower.

This shower was a very utilitarian shower; much quicker and with much less steam. And while she took only enough time to wash, it did give her enough time to realize that she needed some advice on what she should do. Not her mother's advice though. She knew the kind of advice her mother would give, "You're a young and attractive girl…Lots of boys will appreciate you… he'll see what he's missing, blah blah blah." She needed real advice.

She needed to talk to the elves.

She dressed quickly, just throwing on a pair of jeans and a shirt before grabbing a windbreaker and heading out. She was impeded, however, by an argument between her two brothers in the middle of the doorway.

"Why do you have to use live animals!" screamed Simon.

"Because we have to find out if we can sneak something that's alive, like us, past it!" Jared yelled back, brandishing a demolished toy sailboat.

"Hamburger will do just as good a mice and squirrels!"

"Trolls like to kill things! How many times do I have to tell you! If it's not alive the troll might just ignore it because it can't kill it!"

"If you two don't move _I'm_ going to kill both of you!"

The twins stared up their sister, and then took their argument elsewhere.

Shaking her head in exasperation, she jogged down from the house to Dulac Drive and crossed the street and headed off through the field. She went straight for a series of hills that grew steadily larger until they disappeared into a large forest.

She crested one hill and started down into the miniature valley between it and the next one. She continued on up the next one and then the next, passing an occasional tree here and there. As she walked, she kept stopping and looking around, thinking she heard snickering. She shook the sensation off and continued down the hill toward the road.

Suddenly, she stopped. She'd been walking in circles. _Stupid Stray Sod_.

She took her windbreaker off and flipped it inside out before putting it back on. She turned back towards the hills and started walking. And then she stopped. She was facing the road again, _Damn it!_

She tried to remember what the field guide said about these sorts of spells. Or illusions. Or whatever the hell they were. Obviously, the more Stray Sod that were around, the stronger their spell. But the more clothes you turned inside out, the better protected you were, and she seemed to recall that more people made the illusion diluted and easier to see through. She was alone this time though, so she figured she should turn as much inside out as she could.

Again she removed her windbreaker, making sure to keep it inside out, and then removed her shirt and pants. She was in the middle of turning them inside out when she looked at her socks and decided she should flip those around too. As she pulled her socks off, she paused and looked around. The road was, as usual, deserted, there was no one around the hills, again, as usual, and the house was so far away you could barely tell if _anyone_ was on this hill from it. She thought about it for a moment, decided to go for broke, and quickly removed her underwear and flipped it inside out then pulled the rest of her, now faerie proof, clothes back on. The pants however, were troublesome and she settled for just belting them around her waist as tight as she could.

Then she turned and marched unerringly, if a bit uncomfortably, towards the grove.

- - -

Mallory sat on the grass next to the thorn tree and waited to be acknowledged by the elves. It usually took around ten minutes before the elves decided it was better to just go talk to you than have you sitting around in their forest. Though, they were starting to show up sooner as time went on. Mallory guessed that either they were getting used to talking to them, or they decided that they were an annoyance and the sooner they talked to them the sooner they'd go away. She hopped it was the former.

As it stood, she only had to wait for about five minutes before the Green-eyed Elf made an appearance. She'd never given them her name and they had thought it wouldn't be polite to just ask her point blank, so to them she'd always been, and probably always will be, the Green-eyed elf.

"What do you want, child?"

There was no anger, or even annoyance, in her tone. It was blunt and to the point, but that's all it was. And under her gaze, Mallory now felt a little silly about why she had come here.

"I. . . was hoping for some advice."

"Advice on what?"

Her voice held curiosity now. That was something she'd never heard from the elves, but it was unmistakable. Now that she thought about it, this was probably the first time any of them had ever come to speak with the elves about anything that didn't relate to The Guide, let alone for advice.

She suddenly felt extremely stupid for coming here about this and found her shoes intensely fascinating, "…Love."

"And what about love?"

"How… how do I make someone who doesn't love me, love me? Why does someone who isn't interested in me steal my heart so easily? What does it take to have that perfect love?"

"Perfect love? Perfect love is rare indeed - for to be a lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain. It is something that very few are capable of, and one so young as you could not hope to have it yet. You must realize that emotions are sometimes frighteningly fleeting, and that what you want now will most definitely not be what you want later. So take comfort in that while the boy you want may not want you, it is quite possible that will change, and that when he does want you as much as you want him now, your heart could have moved on and been accepted by another. Your heart is not made of stone, and it accepts love where it is found, and gives it when it is felt. Until you do find that perfect love, you must accept that it is transient and that while it can cause great pain, it can easily find someone who gives the great affection you desire."

It was a strange feeling. She didn't actually answer any of her questions and yet, she answered them better than should could have possibly hoped. It was by no means the answer she was expecting, but it was so perfect it didn't matter. It didn't matter if Chris didn't love her. The heart was a flexible thing that was capable of loving anyone and everyone, and when she did find the someone that loved her, she could find love for them.

She smiled and thanked the elf and then left the grove and headed for home. As she walked, she looked forward to the next practice meet. She was going to beat Chris so badly for turning her down.


End file.
